Jerusalem first appears in the material as an unholy city embodying the world's false religions, which pervert God's truth and thereby function as a spiritual prostitute. Isaiah 1:21 captures this degeneration when it asks how the faithful city has become a harlot full of murderers after justice once lodged within her. The same feminine imagery recurs when the daughter of Zion is portrayed as a lonely booth in a vineyard or a besieged hut left desolate after strangers devour the land. Zion is further depicted as an abandoned wife who laments that the Lord has forsaken her, and as a bereaved mother whose children have been taken away. These pictures of unfaithfulness are then developed through the allegory of Galatians 4, in which the present Jerusalem corresponds to Mount Sinai and to Hagar the bondwoman, bearing children for slavery under the old covenant. By contrast, the Jerusalem above is identified with Sarah the freewoman and is declared to be the mother of all who believe, producing freedom through the new covenant. The material next traces the same womanly figure forward to its consummation. The New Jerusalem descends from heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, the Lamb, and is called the wife of the Lamb. This perfected city, a perfect cube housing the complete elect church, fulfills the grand destiny once promised to the earthly city yet forfeited through disobedience. Thus the progression from harlot and forsaken wife to free mother and spotless bride illustrates the movement from divine judgment upon apostasy to the full realization of redemption in the heavenly Jerusalem that will abide forever.